Hon.-Prof. Dr. Irene Welser is partner at CHSH Cerha Hempel Spiegelfeld Hlawati Rechtsanwälte GmbH and heads the Contentious Business Department of the firm. She has been acting as an arbitrator and as parties’ counsel in more than 50 international and national arbitrations, mainly under the ICC, Vienna and UNCITRAL Rules. As of 2015, she has become the first female board member of the Vienna International Arbitral Centre (VIAC). Irene is also a passionate litigator and advises domestic and international clients in commercial and civil law. Construction and building law, liability law, M&A disputes, contract law, aviation law, insurance, energy law and oil and gas disputes are key areas of her practice. She combines her litigation and arbitration skills with a firm understanding of how to avoid or settle disputes. Irene Welser was admitted to the Vienna Bar in 1992. She holds a Doctor’s degree and in 2003 became the youngest Honorary Professor at the University of Vienna, lecturing in business and civil law and arbitration. She also been co-organising the Vienna Arbitration Days. Her first main publication, Warranties in Contracts on Works and Services (1989), has become a standard text in this field. She is co-editor of the Austrian Yearbook on International Arbitration and author and co-author of several further books and publications dealing with contract law, warranty and liability questions as well as arbitration issues, and has published more than 100 articles in Austrian and International law magazines. The last years have seen her lecturing on international arbitration in Istanbul, California, Hong-Kong, Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo, in Brussels, Romania, Slovakia and at the Düsseldorf Arbitration School as well as at the Austrian Arbitration Academy and in the LL.M Programme “International Dispute Resolution” of Danube University Krems. Irene Welser speaks German, English, French and Italian.